Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Oates Essay -- Literary An

For centuries, society has placed a remarkably large emphasis on protecting the immature from the m either perceived errors of growing up. Effective sex education is resisted in many locations across the country in favor of somewhat cockeyed biblical suggestions for abstinence until marriage even while the majority of those targeted teens argon viewing the world as a more and more sexual place. So many views are weaving in and out of teenagers freshly formed adolescent minds that any effective argument for responsible attitudes or analysis of sexual behavior in teens should be expressed with a certain minimal degree of clarity. Unfortunately, this essential lucidity of advice is missing in the short story Where are You Going, Where Have You Been, in which the misguided Joyce chant Oates creates the character of Arthur Friend as a clich personification of the inner goliath of uncontrollably budding sexuality. Instead, the murky characterization of the antagonist presents nothi ng more than a confused and ambiguous view of the meaning of the story.According to general belief, the character in question, Arthur Friend, is essentially the devil, or if not the fiend himself, a reasonable symbolic facsimile that serves to represent a similarly non-white aspect of society. Theres such a plethora of textual evidence to support this analysis that its often skipped over in discussions in favor of more thought provoking conversation. However, the demonic good example of A. Friend is so present in the story that to skip it would be to unforgivably neglect an integral part of the story. In nearly either detail of description resides a sometimes insidious demonic allusion. The physiologic appearance being the most present, it describes Arthur as a man beh... ...ert write up of the character, the auditory modality would be able to see that Arnold meant exactly what she intended him to mean, and wherefore could move onto the next aspect of the story. This would have cleared up the audience disconnect that currently remains present in her painfully tiresome story. Her choice to veil her main antagonist with so much symbol hindered the readers ability to understand her story, thereby hurting any intended effect the story was to have.Works Cited Nmachiavelli, et al. Question What do the add up 33, 19, 17 signify in the story? They are written along the side of Arnold Friends car. Enotes.com. Enotes.com, Inc., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2010. .Oates, Joyce Carol. Where are You Going, Where Have You Been? N.p. Epoch, 1966. N. pag. Print.